Building A Commercial Real Estate Innovation Institute For Investa
Problem
The Australian commercial real estate market is highly competitive, with low interest rates and favourable conditions attracting global institutional investors and developers of various scales. Traditionally slow-moving, it's now evolving due to changes in working practices, with agile and activity-based working gaining popularity. A new generation of entrepreneurial tenants seeks flexibility and nimble partners, demanding more innovation in the sector to sustain growth.
Pressure
Facing large internal shifts and changing ownership, Investa's challenge was to educate, empower, and incentivise staff to reimagine the way they design and renew their spaces by putting customers first, and helping to reduce complexity and friction, which is vital for growth. This was made difficult without an existing innovation framework or a culture of design-thinking, making the integration of a renewed vision and scope crucial for client-focused solutions.
Solution
Investa's Innovation Institute, with its unique 6-stage leadership evolution program, has transformed its approach, providing employees unmatched skills in innovative problem-solving within the real estate sector. The program's 2018 achievements include launching the Fast-Start Fit-out service to streamline office tenant fit-outs, initiating Innopoly, Investa's internal accelerator that resulted in 35 MVPs and 42 experiments, and introducing a comprehensive data dashboard that integrates live data from 12 properties across more than 30 systems.
Impact
Investa had an Innovation structure that unlocked 6 strategic initiatives over a 3 year period, involving tenant discovery, data projects, and an internal innovation program. This effort led to a robust Innovation Vision, now central to their business. Key initiatives include an Innovation Leadership Committee, company-wide innovation KPIs, an internal accelerator for new ideas, and a team of trained innovation champions to propel these advancements.